The girl just shrugs her shoulders, her blank face flickering blue-black in the television glare. A blender whirs and churns under the touch of a middle aged shopping network Barbie doll, its virtues diced into ticker traffic bulletins that flow like river flotsam across the bottom of the screen. The girl stares, unseeing, unmoved by the Barbie’s ministrations. I can see the failures of her life welling up behind her glassy eyes like aquarium lobsters waiting to die. I reach my hand out to her and she whimpers softly, though I’m not even sure she knows I’m there.
They stare at the painting, faded acrylic pushed against bare red brick. A tiny boat in an ocean scene, still within a squall. They follow it, he towards serenity and her into its maw. The threat of storms. Her voice lowered in the light but shedding its own upon the room. He watches her silently with time rimed eyes, propped up in bed as though king of a soiled throne, while she gathers up her clothes and hangs them on her frame. She can feel him tugging at each of the strings of self-consciousness tied to her body.
I nearly got stabbed last night. Is it still a stabbing if they only cut you? The guy standing there, slashing his knife around in the air. I had to throw the bag of weed at him. I run past him while he fumbles with the bag and the knife, nearly breaking my neck on the mess of ethernet cables and pizza boxes living the hall. I pull myself up and run through the lounge screaming, it’s a bust! My deadbeat brother sits there in rigor mortis bong grip, watching me with dead eyes and that sadistic grin of his.
Ambrose lay outside the door, waiting quietly to be let in. He had no idea how long had he been there but it felt like forever. It was so cold outside. The rain was strumming its first few chords against the chill pavement while the wind blew its vicious beats against the windows of the house. There was something coming for him, he could sense it. It made his shoulders tense and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. A lifetime of instinct told him to flee, to hide, to get as far away as possible before it found him. I should run he thought. Something made him stay.
This is a safe place Ambrose thought, I’ll be safe inside. He looked around him at the familiar surroundings. The deck and the banister of the old Queenslander home, the faded couch he’d spent so many summer afternoons on, passing the time in the sun. It all looked so foreign in the dark. He snorted defiantly and tucked his head against his chest.
A flash of lighting over the horizon made him shiver. It wouldn’t be safe out here much longer. He had to get inside. Ambrose knocked gently against the door. Nothing was stirring on the other side. The house was silent. Whimpering softly Ambrose lowered his head again and closed his eyes. It was useless, he wasn’t coming. Ambrose had spent his whole life with the man inside and now here he was, alone in the dark.
Thunder boomed in the distance and Ambrose let loose another whimper. He had to try again, he couldn’t give up now. He rapped again at the door, his limbs shaking with fear and urgency. Desperately, he scratched at the door, forcing himself against it with all his strength. He was almost screaming now, a hopeless howl torn loose from his throat and lost to the wind. The door stood strong against his attack as the thunder clapped mockingly at his efforts. His body shook and his throat ran hoarse with his guttural shouts.
From the depths of the house a light flickered into life. Ambrose ceased his assault and listened hopefully to the soft patter of feet approaching the door. Despite his fear Ambrose could feel a lightness enter him. This was it, any moment now and he would be safe.
Andrew was dreaming of the ocean when the noise woke him. All that banging and bustle on the porch, it had to be Ambrose. He pulled a loose cotton robe around his shoulders and started towards the front door.
‘Every time,’ Andrew muttered to himself. ‘It’s just a damned storm, Brosie. Nothing to be scared of.’ He pushed open the door and looked down at the silhouette of his dog huddled on the porch. ‘Come on, get inside you big wuss,’ he said.
Ambrose unfolded himself slowly from the ground and looked up sheepishly. He trotted past the man and into the hall, his tail wagging happily.
Andrew shut the door behind them. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘You can sleep in my room.’
We go forward by default
it’s not our fault,
simply habits inhibiting,
learnt with time,
ingrained on our unconscious mind.
We sit on cardboard cut out couches
eating dinner from a box,
living in die-cast diorama dreams,
where sometimes feeling feels too hard
and talking about something real
is hard to imagine unless its on TV.
We play games made of electricity,
fused with no spark, sitting in the dark
faces infused with flickering blues
glowing wherever we go.
Communication broken down
into bits and bytes.
Digital rights that shouldn’t be left
to register on an analogue scale.
In an age of scrap and metal
where information falls like hail
and melts more easily
than the machines we control,
we go forward by default.
Once, you held my hand
and smiled.
You took my hand in yours
and said I love you
through your teeth.
You sat with my hand in your lap
and told me what was wrong.
What was wrong with me
happened differently,
at distance,
back turned,
shoulder cold,
eyes cast like iron
filings flung into a lake.
Once, I tied your heart around me
with second hand string
and swam out after you,
choking for all the good it did me.
I took your hand in mine
and tried to save you
from yourself.
You must not please me
Put your heart against me
Because didn’t I see you
In your dreams
Or is it a place
Where I love you
Heart donor
Haven’t we lost this dance before
Using hands that held me as a child
my mother crafted a cup
with soil from the earth,
painted a veneer
with words from my soul,
and presented it without ritual.
Silt bound into substance,
burnished like the truth,
glazed like eyes into the past,
empty like so many promises.
She has beautiful lips this girl,
plump and firm, pale crimson,
if that can be said.
When she smiles
it takes on the air of a spectacle,
a Broadway performance
as they slide gracefully back
revealing the uniform white
light of teeth,
an ensemble cast of joy.
They work in tandem,
lips and teeth, with her eyes,
those deep-set green forests of thought,
so that when she smiles,
when the curtain is raised
and the show commences,
her eyes work the room,
a talented spotlight to attract your attention.
And all the while she never sees you.
She sits on the sand letting the wind play with her hair, waiting for meaning to wash in on the tide. The dusky sun shines its half hearted rays around her feet, too concerned with keeping its head above the horizon to worry about others. Its light has no bite. She digs a soft, slender fingered hand into the sand and imagines its future. Glass, a vase, tall and slim, filled with tulips arranged with delicate precision. She pulls her hand free from the silt. Tiny grains cling to the moisture on her skin like a sandpaper glove. This is what it feels like to be alive she thinks.
As the sun relents, a silver sheen overtakes the waves and coats the beach. A chill sneaks quietly across the sand like the breath of the moon, asking the girl to pull her shawl tighter around her shoulders. It’s getting late she thinks, I should be getting home. I should be doing something. With a sigh, a perfect pitch to match the moon, she slumps her shoulders and falls back into the sand.
‘No,’ she sighs, ‘I won’t go.’
There’s no need. I make my own rules. My own choices, life. I make my own life.
‘I make my own damn it.’
The moon settles in its arc and looks down passively at the girl. The wind has stopped playing with her hair, finding fancy building banks of sand against her skin instead. Like a shipwrecked relic, the elements do their best to reshape her. Rivulets of sand trickle across her torso and form islands in the folds of her clothes. Grain after grain it marches and mounds against her body. She digs her fingers into the sand and grasps at its embrace.
‘You know me,’ she whispers, ‘because I’m part of you.’
She moves
like propaganda disseminates,
She emanates,
a willful charm
you can’t disarm,
that holds you still,
enraptured,
caught and captured,
bound and wound
around her finger
the more you linger.
Heart elusive,
tongue abusive,
she’s a vitriolic vixen
you can’t ignore
but only fall for,
more,
and more,
and more.
I remember watching Ikky sink and thinking I should do something, that I should be able to help, to stop it, to save her. I was never able to save her. I used to watch her playing with Dash in the orchards in summer. They’d come out for the harvests when the mangos were ripe, we all came out. It was tradition. Ikky would lift Dash onto her shoulders and he would pass the mangos down to her to fill their baskets. Every now and again Ikky would lower Dash to the ground and they’d spread themselves in the shade for a break. I remember how she used to look at those times. She always wore her hair in a high braid, the kind that wraps around the back of a girls head. I remember one year she wore a dress made of pure cotton, white and red. I thought she looked like an angel, the light playing around her braid like a halo of gold. It was unbearable to look at her sometimes, and even worse not to. Mother would curse a streak at me for my share of dropped mangos, unusually high when Ikky was about.
I don’t think Ikky ever knew I was watching her, not how I was watching her, but occasionally she would see me looking, staring like an idiot, and smile. My heart would skip like a rogue butterfly and I’d let loose another mango from my hands. She was so beautiful and so far away. Maybe it was better that way, maybe she was better that way. I used to think that if I touched her, if my hands, these callused dirty paws on the ends of my wrists, if my hands ever touched her skin she would spoil. I thought I was unworthy. I knew I was beneath her. But how badly I had wanted her, any and all of her.
When I heard Ikky was to be married I could hardly move. I remember Mother took me as sick and sent me to bed, my supper cold and untouched at the table. I lay there unable to close my eyes, breathing only out of stubborn habit. My body wouldn’t let me die as much as I had wanted it to. My angel, my untouchable angel was to be given body and soul to another man, and worse, infinitely worse, she had wanted to be his.
Carlos was a brute. He had always been a brute. When we were young Carlos and I would play with the other children in the fields behind the tar pits. The simple games of childhood, imaginary and safe, though Carlos was never content with safety. I think to myself now that Carlos was simply never content. I remember one day while we were playing he got it into his mind to dare poor Vim to brave the tar. Vim was the youngest of us, the runt we used to say, always biting at our ankles. The older children, myself included, would take turns walking into the tar, as far as we could manage and back again before we were stuck. We never let Vim take a turn, he was too little, too scared, too likely to panic. To Carlos, this just made him sport. He taunted Vim, jeering at him, calling him names. We all joined him, none of us wanted to lose favour with the brute who could so easily torment.
I remember the knots in my stomach as Vim took his first step out onto the tar, his arms raised from his sides to balance his weight. I wished for him to make it out, and more to make it back. If he cried now or backed out Carlos would never let him forget it. Vim took his first step and faltered, I could see he was scared, we all could. It didn’t stop Carlos though, his taunts just grew to match Vim’s hesitation. I think now that Vim kept walking simply to escape Carlos and his jeers.
Vim was too far out before I knew something was wrong. His steps were coming too far apart, taking too long. I could see his feet. The tar clung to his soles too readily, too greedily. I yelled for him to come back, to turn around. I remember thinking he was too far out to hear me, that the tar ate my words as easily as Vim’s footsteps. The other Children were silent, even Carlos. I told them to run back to the village and get help. They fled, happy to be away from the sight of Vim and his sinking determination. I remember standing there beside Carlos, unable to move, unable to help. I remember looking at Carlos as the tar ate what little remained of Vim’s innocence. His face was like stone, cold and passive. I had expected there to be horror there, or shame, or regret. I had expected something to be there, but there was nothing. I saw the same look on Carlos’ face on the day he and Ikky were married.
I turned my eyes from the brute and sent them out over the pit. There was nothing to see now. Nothing to hear but the faint bubble and grumble as the tar settled its stomach. The heat coming towards us from the middle of the pit did little to warm the chill that had taken hold of my body. By the time the adults arrived it was too late. Vim was gone and so was Carlos’ humanity.
I remember watching Ikky sink and thinking of Vim, thinking that I should be able to help now where I could not back then. I remember thinking that she was right. Ikky did what she had to do to escape, just as Vim had.
I wander the night in search of meaning
but all I find is cold, stale air.
My teeth chatter, a rattling tattoo
of sombre notes and mournful tones
played for one inside my skull.
My friends, I wonder, what of them?
where are they now? At home?
I hope, but knowing not their names to seek
for all that was has long grown weak
I huddle in and breathe
this cold, stale air that rapes my lungs
and having passed just leaves me
stung, hollow, done and gasping.
Coming down from LSD,
supposedly,
I tell my friend
I’m going to kill myself
and he smiles, thinking me a fool
and it’s true, though not for his reasons.
He thinks it treason, my attitudes
my lassitude,
my apathetic discontent,
my seeming relent,
but he doesn’t understand my embrace.
I have chosen
and having decided
my fate is freed.
There is need no longer
to feed on malcontent.
I am liberated from deliberation,
alive in a land of opportunity,
knowing my death
waits at the end of my hand.
You sit down and for all intents
you play my chords the way they’re meant,
but I’m not sure, it just sounds hollow,
you play a tune that I can’t follow.
It seems to me upon inspection,
your finger’s movement,
placing and inflection,
the way they hover over keys,
only roughly where they need,
and now no longer in your thrall,
that you’re not playing me at all.
All this time I’ve loved your talent,
your style and grace,
your gaited ballad.
I’ve admired your composition,
your fleeting touch
and sharp precision.
But it was merely artifice.
Performance true but not a fact.
A simple farce, a way to lure me,
a little act, a tune in your key.
So now your lie has come unthreaded,
the gorgon gaze has been beheaded.
I see me how you saw me then,
the way I think you see all men,
as instruments or simple tools,
you play us so we play the fool,
but it stops here because now I know,
I was just your piano.
A Few Short Words 